Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Is this the End of the Election Assistance Commission?

Last
week, the House Administration Committee approved legislation to shut down
the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The EAC was originally organized over
10 years ago with a limited mission to help states improve their election
systems. Many are saying it is no longer useful and leaving some to question
whether it was useful to begin with.

"This
agency needs to go,'' said Rep. Gregg Harper (MS-3), who introduced the bill to
eliminate the Election Assistance Commission. "This agency has outlived
its usefulness and to continue to fund it is the definition of
irresponsibility.''

Congress
created the Election Assistance Commission in 2002 as part of the Help America
Vote Act to help states improve their voting systems by replacing old punch
card and lever voting systems, and to implement statewide registration
databases. When the Commission was created, it was only authorized for three
years, yet more than 10 years later, with its mission largely complete, the
EAC continues.

Rep. Todd Rokita(IN-4), former
Secretary of State of Indiana and another member of the House Administration
Committee stated:

“The
EAC is an outdated program that no longer provides value to taxpayers. And
unfortunately, the attitude demonstrated by this small agency is indicative of
the problems we’re seeing across all agencies – that somehow, overseers in
Washington, D.C., ought to be telling state and local officials how to do their
jobs better. It is one more example of an overreaching, wasteful government
program that must be cut if we’re going to get serious about our debt crisis
and hold the federal government accountable to the Constitution,”

Many
election officials on both sides of the political aisle across the country,
including the National Association of Secretaries of State, support the ending
of the EAC.

The chairwoman of the
Administration Committee, Rep. Candice Miller (MI-10), called the Election
Assistance Commission "a prime example of waste shielded by bureaucracy."

Currently,
the agency's four commissioner slots are vacant and it has an acting executive
director. Without enough commissioners, the commission can't adopt new
policies, hold formal hearings or issue advisory opinions. Eliminating it would
save $11.5 million a year.

Unfortunately, some Democrats seem to believe that the EAC is still needed. It is not; it is time to end the EAC.

You can listen to the full
hearing regarding the EAC’s ineffectiveness here.